It's NOT All About the Benjamins!

I’d like to think that it is love that makes the world go ‘round, but I suspect most people would opt for money, or the love of money. Whether you’ve got plenty of it, or little of it, money occupies a big chunk of your concern, doesn’t it? How am I going to keep what I’ve got? How am I going to earn more than I’ve got? How am I going to get by if I don’t have any? Money is at the center of our lives.

I’m doing a sermon series called, “Your Money or Your Life,” and I’m suggesting that many of us are living to make money, rather than making money in order to live. What a poor life-choice! When money is the driving force, all kinds of bad things happen, like oil catastrophes in the Gulf of Mexico, or toxic loans in the banking industry, and, well, developing ulcers . . .

I know it is complicated. Money is often the reason we are willing to hire an undocumented immigrant to pick our tomato crop because we can hire them more cheaply and thus compete with the industrial farms that are picking tomatoes with machines in order to cut down on costs so that we, consumers, who are positively driven to save a buck, can leave the store with tomatoes at sixty-nine cents a pound! Ahem. To quote Pogo, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

Money is the reason dolphins are slaughtered in secret coves on the coast of Taiji, Japan. Money is the reason pornographic websites continue to multiply. Money is the reason some of you reading this can’t sleep at night.

Jesus said, “You can’t love both God and mammon (Matthew 6:24).” Mammon is a word describing “worldly gain.” The early Christian movement is described as “The Way,” in the Book of Acts, and whenever The Way got “in the way” of someone’s livelihood (read Acts 19:23-41), Christians got persecuted. Christians are supposed to be more concerned about making a certain way of life, than they are about making money, although in recent history we tend to get a little confused about that. If we choose The Way, we may gain a little perspective on life and money and establish some more wholesome priorities. Still, if we choose The Way, people whose top priority IS money may get a little upset with us.

I realize times are hard for about 10 – 15 % of the U.S. population. I don’t offer these thoughts to deepen anyone’s anxiety. If anything I am inviting us to try a different perspective, so that whether we have a lot of wealth or none, God and not mammon becomes our main concern. And Jesus says the result is refreshing to our spirits (Matthew 6:25-34):

‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
‘So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.